Tweedling

I did it. I'm twatting. Twerting. Twitting. Whatever.

I'm not doing very well at it.

I originally joined to follow the guy who was posting as Christopher Walken. He made my heart soar in that early Disney movie kind of way. Not like this Wall-E bullshit of the nowadays. But he's gone now. Sad.

If you want to read, follow, obsess over the half-assed nonsense, it's here.

If you want to ditto the Waif's just as half-assed nonsense, it's here.

We both joined the same day without knowing it. Are we those creepy kind of sisters like the ones from The Shining or WHAT? Exactly.

Must off...my sangria need stirring.

When Literature is Ravaged

The title can be read in two ways:

I'm either talking about a classical novel that has been carried away against its will to the cabin of a pirate ship where it will have its maidenhead stolen during a stormy night at sea by a man with puffy sleeves and unfortunately long hair.

OR

Someone has tried to strategically place zombies into a pastoral Georgian novel about love and the intricacies and ironies of society.


This may come as a surprise, but I think it was supposed to be funny.

It's crap.

I only kept reading it because I wanted to know if Darcy and Elizabeth got chomped in the end.

They did.

I might be lying.

Honestly though, I would like to have the author over for a beer, well, both authors, really...but in this instance just the one who's alive so that I may seek to understand his motivation behind this failure of the modern age. This novel was the ironic mustache of the trend in classical lit rewrites. It's trying to make a statement, but no one is really sure what it is...and just succeeds in coming off as unclean.

It's lazy.

Let me illustrate. Here is a smattering of dialogue:

Lady De Bourgh: Have your ninjas left you?

Elizabeth: We never had any ninjas.

Lady De Bourgh: No ninjas! How was that possible? Five daughters brought up at home without any ninjas! I never heard of such a thing. Your mother must have been quite a slave to your safety.

See what he did there? Yeah, he replaced the word "governess/governesses" with "ninja(s)" and boom...it's a totally different book! But way funnier, because now it has ninjas in it! How fucking original! It's totally like those crazy mustaches people used to have but absolutely nobody has now! Oh wait.

To add insult to corneal injury, I made the mistake of turning the last page to discover BOOK CLUB DISCUSSION QUESTIONS asking the reader to really reach down deep and analyze things like the importance of the role that vomit plays in the story.

I especially liked the beginning of this one:
Is Mr. Collins merely too fat and stupid to notice his wife's gradual transformation into a zombie...?

It's not even the stupidity of the question that gets me...it's that he believes people need his guidance to mock the thing. That a living room, several bottles of wine and a group of Austen-loving women isn't all the inspiration one needs to rip it apart (both figuratively and literally).

It is, of course, available at all fine book retailers.

I would like to advise Mr. Seth Grahame-Smith not to quit his day job.

I have to go, b-rock's trying to make me watch Nova.

Half-Assed Reviews: Andrus - The Man, The Mind & The Magic

My dad's cooler than your dad. How many of YOUR dads have made a movie? And not just of you unwrapping your Crystal Castle when you were 6. A real movie. On film. And not Super 8 film because that's almost impossible to get and pointless... I mean digital film. Yes, the magic instant kind. And not just with one 2-hour wide angled establishing shot of a family reunion at a state park... I mean a a real MOVIE. Spliced. With cut-aways, transitions, linear storytelling, voice-over... the whole gypsy caravan. And not just played in the VCR for the grandparents on holidays... but in an effin' theater and at festivals. Yes... I win.

My father lives in Corvallis. Corvallis is a smallish town in the middle of the cool side of Oregon. That's the left. I have no idea what goes on in the right side. Corvallis is filled with aged hippies, smoothie shops and college students in orange and black. I've never liked it. But that's not the point. It was at an Oregonians for Rationality meeting in Corvallis that dad met Jerry Andrus, an 80-something fellow skeptic who was ALSO a geniusesque magician/illusionist.

Now... just imagine the kind of person you must be to inspire someone to want to make a movie about you.

That's Jerry.

Dad and Ty (the Waif's baby daddy) devoted several years with almost no help and no budget to capture what Jerry brought to the world both meaningfully and beautifully. As with any independent film, distribution has been a temperamental mistress, even with excellent reviews and support. But here's another baby step in the most correct direction:

Thursday, 10:00 PM/PT on Oregon Public Broadcasting, an hour-long version of Andrus will air.

Watch it. It will make you feel insignificant. In a good way.

It's A Big Day

For several reasons. But I've forgotten them.

Except for this one.

And it's fuckin' huge.

I cleaned out this:

To make room for 16 of these...

After an hour, a glass of wine and the entirety of Nirvana's Nevermind, I succeeded in reducing the contents of my fridge to this:

That was after tossing out almost everything inside - including two jars of lemon curd. What the fuck am I doing with lemon curd? I'm not British, nor do I prefer any manner of curd other than the cheese variety.

Anyway........I did it.

Impressive, isn't it. Wars have started over these glorious homemade pickles. Peace treaties have been negotiated. Children have been sold. Lambies have been martyred. Civilizations have been conquered. Goods and services have been bartered. Homesteads have been pillaged. Stamp collections forsaken. Leather jackets sold to Buffalo Exchange. All for these pickles.

Normally the pickle-making party is the event of the season. This year it was just WORK. The demand has gotten so high (see paragraph above) that there is no joy in the stuffing of the jars...only determination to get as many cucs in as possible. Ok, there was some joy, but it was working joy. Is that a thing? Seriously though, I broke a sweat.

Next year I'm bringing up the option of outsourcing. I know lots of children without jobs.

Anyway, if in two months, when they mature, anyone remembers that it's time for the pickles to be mature and writes me a gloriously pickle-related limerick...I'll send them a jar.

See, I'm safe because no one will do that.

My Sister is a Jerkwad

The Waif's attack on my person has inspired a hasty post. And by 'hasty' I mean I may not spell check it.

Ok, I never spell check it.

I just want you all to know that I'm being stalked by sharks. Don't anyone tell them where I live.

Speaking of where I live - where you aware that I am attempting to buy a parking space. When I bought my little condo in the sky (2nd floor) so many months ago, we were told there were no extra spaces (10 units:9 spaces...ratios.). We would have to park always and forever on the street outside the anti-undesirables gate. And that was ok. Annoying, but ok.

Then a couple of weeks ago, I got a call that the developer of the, well...development, realized he'd never sold one of the spots and would I want to buy it.

Yes. Yes I would.

Soon I will be parting with an inconveniently-sized (though I low-balled like a champ) amount of money at an inconvenient time (we're heading off to Europe in a couple of weeks) so that I may own a rectangle of concrete on the inside of the anti-undesirables gate. And once the deed is done, I shall do a jolly jig inside the nest of my rectangle. And then in a celebratory manner, we'll bbq meats within its confines. And then...well, we'll park Brendan's car in it. And it will be good.

Jigs and bbqs aside, all the back and forth and paperwork and third-party nonsense for a transaction such as this feels...silly. Like...wearing shoes on the beach silly. Or dead president masks to brunch, that kind of silly. You know what I mean.

In other news, I don't think break dancing really counts. As dancing, I mean. Just saying.

Lookee what I found...

Here's a treat for you all while you're waiting for K-rah to get back to blogging already. A little gem I came across whilst cleaning off my hard drive. Without further ado... here she is, before and after undergoing a Noel Fielding hairdo.


And if you've never seen the Mighty Boosh and thus have no clue as to who on earth I am referencing, well then there's really no hope for you, is there?

Whose locks shall I photoshop upon my sister's head next...requests anyone? I'm leaning towards Mandy Patinkin in "The Princess Bride". You know--as my sister likes to say--for funsies.

If It Walks, It's Food.

Nic wants me to talk about...

Food: Indian or Japanese

I think she's worried that neither country has food. I'm not sure why since both are experiencing technological booms and the like. Japan's got vending machines that distribute ladies' skivvies and India likes to help me reset my router while calling me ma'am. With that kind of modern day know-how comes all manner of food. So I think that answers that.

But if one is to delve into specifics of what each country eats...and turns it into a contest - well there's only one winner...and that's lamb.

The Japanese (as far as I know) don't cook with lamb. Or curry. And in the end...that will be their downfall. That and the giant squid that will devour the entire island. You know it's going to happen.

Still...I love me some sushi. Except unagi. It's slimy. Used car salesman slimy. But in your mouth. This is coming out wrong.

In other news, I was excited to read that The Time Traveler's Wife was going to be turned into a movie. I don't know why I was excited. Hollywood's ruined every novel post Gone With The Wind...I don't see what this should've been different. And according to this article, it won't be. I don't know where this sudden burst of hope came from. Must be some residual hope leftover from the Obama campaign.

Actually - I know where it came from. It came from seeing the trailer for Where the Wild Things Are. It's Obama-style hope with a dash of Spike Jonze pizzazz. And it looks like it spilled over. Damn.

So anyway, I shared the above article with my mother...the bestower of one of the only modern fictional love stories that didn't make me want to urp with the turning of each page and she had THIS to say regarding the ending change brought about by the happy ending neediness of the focus group:

Who's got time to be in a test audience? A bunch of idiots.

I think I speak for all of us (general public) when I respond with..."so true".

But to stay on (or rather return to) the point - at the end of the day Japanese food still wins, as I will most certainly be getting sushi before I get tikka masala if for no other reason that it's a refreshingly cool meal in this heat.

But come winter...no lambs are safe. I don't care how cute they are.

BodyWorks - On A Totally Different Level

When listing out possible blog topics needing my opinion, Sue listed"spray-on tanning". I can only venture to guess that this means she wants to know my opinion on both the the act of spray-on tanning as well as the fact of it. Let's break it down into scientific/Egyptian-shaped outline segmentation portions:

I. Spray-on tanning exists.

A. spray-on versus sun contact with skins
B. spray-on vs. attacks by flesh-eating zombies

b. flesh eating zombies with spray-on tans - the existence of.

II. Ok, so maybe I don't exactly remember how to form outlines. It's been a long time since I was in school. And I'm thankful for that time. It's taken me this long to stop analyzing everything that comes at me into a 5 paragraph essay with a thesis sentence. School can fuck you up. Simple as that.

What I'm trying to say here is that I'd find an attack of flesh-eating zombies infinitely more terrifying IF they also sported spray-on tans. And even, EVEN more terrifying would be contemplating whether or not they received those tans prior to their zombified status. Because what if the answer to that was 'no'. No. Think about that.

That would mean that someone has to finagle them into that room where they get sprayed and must thereafter extract credit card information...the whole time the undead growls and grasps at person of the poor innocent spray-tan-facility flunky. The horror.

And the worst part is, you know they're not making more than $8/hr.

Damn this economy.

Damn the undead.

Damn spray-on tans.

Good evening to you all.